Death toll hits 80 in six-day Gaza strike

A Palestinian youth throws stones towards Israeli soldiers guarding the Jewish settlements of Beit Hadasa and Beit Romano during clashes in the Israeli occupied West Bank town of Hebron on November 18.
Photo: AFP

Three people have been killed in new Israeli air strikes on Gaza, pushing the death toll in six days of violence to 80 Palestinians.

The deaths came after multiple raids yesterday killed 31 people, in the bloodiest day of Israel’s bombing campaign.

At least 10 children, five of them babies and toddlers, and six women were among those killed.

The violence has also cost the lives of three Israelis and injured more than 50.

Israeli air strikes also destroyed Abbas police headquarters in the bloodiest day so far of its massive air campaign on the Gaza Strip, as diplomatic efforts to broker a truce intensified.

POLICE HQ DESTROYED

An Israeli air strike has levelled the Abbas police headquarters in Gaza City, an AFP correspondent says.

The strike, which hit just after 11am (AEDT), completely destroyed the building, the second biggest police facility in Gaza City.

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Shockwaves from the blast shattered glass in neighbouring homes, where several people are reported lightly wounded, and shook buildings through the Rimal neighbourhood of the city.

Earlier this week, an Israeli air strike hit the Arafat police headquarters, the primary Hamas police facility for the city.

The strike came as Israel pressed its campaign against the Gaza Strip for a sixth day, opening fire at the Gaza shore from navy ships and carrying out air strikes that killed at least one shortly after midnight.

CEASEFIRE HOPE

But there was no let up in the bloodshed in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, with medics saying women and children accounted for 14 of Sunday’s 31 killed, among them babies and toddlers, in Israeli strikes from the air.

In the day’s most lethal raid, at least nine members of the same family – five of them children – were among 10 people killed when an Israeli missile destroyed a family home in Gaza City, the health ministry said.

At the scene, medics and bystanders all pitched in to remove the rubble to dig out the bodies in the futile hope of finding survivors, as people watched in shock, some weeping openly.

The latest violence hiked the Palestinian casualty toll to 80 dead and more than 600 injured in almost 100 hours of raids, while three Israelis have been killed and more than 50 injured by rocket fire since Wednesday.

With Israel warning it could further escalate its operations in Gaza, US President
Barack Obama
said it was “preferable" for the Gaza crisis to be resolved without a “ramping up" of Israeli military activity.

Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, meanwhile, met with both Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad chief Abdullah Shalah to discuss “Egyptian efforts to end the aggression", his office said without giving details.

But Israel’s Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman
insisted that “the first and absolute condition for a truce is stopping all fire from Gaza", and that all armed groups would have to commit to it.

ISRAEL WARNS OF ESCALATION

Earlier, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
warned Israel was ready to “significantly expand" its operation, ahead of talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on a whirlwind truce tour of the region.

“The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation," Mr Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting, expressing appreciation for what he said was world leaders’ “understanding of Israel’s right to self-defence".

Mr Fabius later said his country was willing to help broker a truce. “War is not an option, it is never an option . . . There are two key words: urgency and ceasefire," he told journalists in Tel Aviv.

Early on Sunday, Israeli aircraft hit two media centres in Gaza City, wounding at least eight journalists, one of whom lost a leg, health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

The military defended the strike, saying it had targeted Hamas operational communications and sought to minimise civilian casualties.

Since the start of its “Operation Pillar of Defence", launched after the killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaabari in an air strike, the Israeli army says it has struck more than 1100 targets in Gaza as militants have fired more than 800 rockets over the border.